Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Digimarc and Google Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Digimarc, the first patent addresses watermarking techniques for processing content objects. Assigned to Google, the second patent addresses techniques for image watermarking.

Watermark encoders and decoders can be integrated into operating systems, Internet browsers, media players, and other applications and devices. Such integration enables the watermark-enabled application or device to provide additional functionality and information available via the watermark. The watermark, for example, may link to metadata or actions related to a media object. To exploit this watermark enabled functionality, the integrated application uses a watermark decoder to access the related metadata and actions. The user interface of the integrated application is enhanced to present metadata and actions linked via the watermark. Similarly, watermark encoders may be integrated into applications to convert media objects into enhanced, watermarked objects. A variety of other arrangements and features are also detailed. Many arrangements can be implemented using object identifiers other than watermarks.

Methods and systems for watermarking of digital images are presented. In one aspect, a method of embedding information in a digital image includes transforming the digital image to a set of coefficient blocks having coefficients in a frequency domain, embedding a watermark-indicator in one or more of the coefficient blocks, and embedding a watermark in one or more watermark blocks that have a predetermined number of coefficient blocks. The embedded watermark is substantially invisible in the output watermarked digital image. Another aspect is a method of extracting a watermark from a digital image that includes transforming a digital image to a coefficient matrix, determining if the digital image is watermarked based on a predetermined watermark-indicator, and retrieving a watermark from a projected watermark block of a projected watermark block distribution.

Notices

All vendor profiles are based on original, indepenent reserach that has not been financially supported by the vendor profiled prior to publication.

Copyright (c) Copyright 2005-2017 Patent Kinetics, LLC No portion of this site including headlines may be used for any commercial purpose whatsoever without attribution and a link to www.managingrights.com.